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The Faith of Anna Waters Movie Review

The Faith of Anna Waters Movie Review | by tiffanyyong.com

Recommended Audience: Fans of Kelvin Tong, Elizabeth Rice, Matthew Settle, Adina Herz, Adrian Pang, Colin Borgonon, Jaymee Ong and horror movie fans

The-Faith-of-Anna-Waters_poster

The Faith of Anna Waters Movie Synopsis

Tenacious journalist Jamie Waters (Elizabeth Rice) travels from Seattle to Singapore to investigate the mysterious suicide of her older sister Anna. Inexplicable events at Anna’s new house and the odd behaviour of her daughter Katie (Adina Herz) lead Jamie to a string of bizarre suicides involving strange allusions to the Tower of Babel. The Faith of Anna Waters 1The supernatural forces arrayed against Jamie intensify when she receives emails from the dead Anna. With the help of her sister’s former husband Sam (Matthew Settle), Jamie races to solve the mystery of Anna’s death as demonic forces attack Katie and evidence mounts of the Tower of Babel rising once again – in the form of the Internet. Catholic priests James De Silva (Colin Borgonon) and Matthew Tan (Adrian Pang) see signs of the apocalypse in the data streams of the Internet.

The Faith of Anna Waters Viewer Rating: 3/5 ***

The Faith of Anna Waters Movie Review:

I wasn’t really sure what I should be expecting before watching this film. Would this be an Asian movie by Singapore director with Hollywood funding? Or would it be an Hollywood film set in Singapore? Well, the movie definitely felt like the latter, which kinda confuses the audience in many ways.
The Faith of Anna Waters SingaporeThe cinematography of the film was interesting. Watching Singapore through tinted lens, the lens of a Westerner, changed my perception of the familiar landscape. This was something I didn’t expect. While most of us will be familiar will Asian horror tales, burning of joss-sticks, evil spirits in red dresses, here, things are different. In the Faith of Anna Waters, men are possessed by demons and exorcised by priest, something uncommon and new.

Faith of Anna Waters PaintingThe cast were pretty good with their character development. My favourite would be Matthew Settle’s Sam, father of Katie and ex-husband of deceased Anna Waters. He was the only one who behaved the most logically in the film. Don’t get me wrong, Elizabeth Rice’s Jamie Waters was good with her emotions, but her cool demeanour when she witnessed suicide cases like a man gorging his eyes out, touching and walking over the crime scene doesn’t make sense at all.

The Faith of Anna Waters 3Adina Herz’s Katie strong belief that her dead mum will return was haunting. It was creepy how she tried to communicate with her mother by using Morse Code. Witnessing the suicide yet having to keep the secret, haunted by child spirits yet refusing to leave the house, the child spirit advising her to leave yet helping her to keep the dad who wanted her to leave the house, just add this to the list of things I don’t understand.
The Faith of Anna Waters Adrian PangOn the other (holy) side, Fathers Da Silva (Colin Borgonon) and Matthew (Adrian Pang), were trying to uncover the mystery behind the series of cyber attacks on church computer systems. I was looking forward to see how the binary codes were linked to supernatural influence as well as the Biblical Tower of Babel from the Old Testament. Sad to say, there was little correlation to the final resolution. It was pretty disappointing how Adrian Pang’s role has little to do with the whole film and the ending. 
The Faith of Anna Waters 2The film was littered with random types of scares, and most of them had little relevance to the main plot (Scaring for the sake of scaring?). If I have to pick my favourite, the one which gave me chills and goosebumps was the initial simple fake scare Katie gave her aunt Jamie when she was looking into the telescope. Nearing the end, after the numerous scares, the exorcism and in-your-face-effects were comparatively less scary, and anti-climatic.

Do You Know?

Kelvin Tong in Faith of Anna WatersThis is Singapore’s first Hollywood horror flick co-financed by Los Angelas-based label Highland Film Group, a specialist in lower budget drama, horror and action films. The rest of the budget US$6 Million came from the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) under its Production Assistance Grant (40%) and Boku Films

Kelvin Tong Elizabeth RiceFirst time directing American actors, Kelvin Tong was startled by their active approach to the film’s creative direction. Elizabeth Rice thought that her character Jamie Waters gave away too much of herself in her speech and request to cut her own screen time by making her more introverted and quieter.

The Faith of Anna Waters HouseInitially a film set in the United States, the screenplay was rewritten to set in Singapore as Kelvin knew the budget could go further in Singapore. The film’s primary location is a black and white bungalow in Singapore, along Stevens Road. Kelvin Tong initially had not intended for this film to be produced, it started purely as a writing exercise.

Behind The Scenes and Interviews

Check out The Faith of Anna Waters Facebook Page!
The Faith of Anna Waters is out in cinemas on 12 May 2016.

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*Disclosure: No monetary compensation was received for the movie review.

If you’ve seen the movie, do let me know what you think of the film in the comment section below. If you agree/disagree with my review, feel free to comment and let me know! Subscribe to my Youtube Channel for movie Behind The Scenes and Interviews playlists! 

17 thoughts on “The Faith of Anna Waters Movie Review”

  1. Generally horror movies rotate around the same premise – haunted houses, strange incidents and all. Not sure whether I ll catch this.

  2. I can see why you gave this 3 stars. After reading the synopsis I could tell it was typical….nothing too creative. I love horror movies, but these days they are all the same! Thanks for this review.

  3. Not much a fan of horror films. If it were, I’d be more interested if it’s from the Asian perspective. I guess I have watched too many Hollywood films the Asian ones appeal to me more, in contrast to my preferences a decade ago.

  4. I am not so much into horror movies. But reading your review, I guess for horror flick enthusiasts, this would probably be a good movit to catch. Looks really scary.

  5. I’m not a fan of horror flicks, I do enjoy watching occasionally. This doesn’t sound as good as the others that you have written about. It’s tough to understand the story, but I’m sure a lot of people enjoyed the usual “scares”.

  6. I really don’t go to horror movies ever, simply because they scare the life out of me 😀 But I would make an exception for this one because of the investigative journalist aspect to the main character. It was the reason I soldiered through The Ring, as journalism is what I’ve studied at uni.

  7. Jason Panuelos

    Religion-related horror films are always so much more creepy! The line-up of actors are so interesting though! 🙂

  8. Interesting, western horror set in the east. I normally avoid Hollywood horrors and particularly get annoyed when Hollywood tends to put a spin on a genre that Asia pulls off so well. But I can appreciate the idea of looking at a city through a different lens once in a while. Might check it out 🙂

  9. So interesting to have American in Singapore, and the film is directed by a Singaporean. Adrian Pang as a Catholic priest! I wish I could see this. Is it going to be released in the US and rest of the world?

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